


the ties that bind

by twistedsky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: For the NWS prompt: "Raven + Sinclair - Like father like daughter."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my first prompt for the NWS Exchange. I was given after-almsivi's prompt list. 
> 
> This is basically just snippets of the Sinclair/Raven familial relationship. It's not entirely canon. I wrote out Finn, and added in a little Wells/Raven, because I like the idea of them.
> 
> Warnings for mentions of canonical abuse and drug use.

At a very young age, Raven Reyes thinks she understands the world very well.

She understands that her mother trades her rations for what she needs, and doesn’t seem to mind when Raven starves.

She learns that people are weak, and there are no bonds that will save you from another person’s selfishness.

She determines that if you don’t take what you need, then you’ll never have it, because others will never hand it to you kindly.

She’s five years old, and this is what she believes.

~~

Later, things change.

There’s something fascinating about figuring out how things work. She’s drawn to mechanical things, to pieces of metal that serve a purpose. Her mother doesn’t pay her much mind, but Raven doesn’t care.

She has an  overwhelming curiosity, and she’ll find a way to sate it even if there’s no one watching.

Everything is tightly controlled on the Ark, but if you put things back, sometimes no one notices that you took them to begin with.

Classes on the Ark start with simple things, and then give you a taste of practical skills for life on the Ark(or life after the Ark, for those skills that cannot be forgotten if humanity is ever going to return to Earth).

She’s only eight, but she's already found her calling. She's meant to be a mechanic. She knows it's competitive, but she can feel it in her blood: this is who she is, and who she’ll always be. Nothing else will ever come this easy to her, no matter how much she likes it.

She wants more, and so she sneaks into restricted areas after hours, and tinkers with things.

She finds a broken radio, and takes it apart, just to put it back together again.

She fixes it, and smiles.

“What are you doing in here?” she hears behind her, and she jumps.

This is a fight or flight sort of moment, and the guy is a lot bigger than her, so she picks flight.

She drops the radio and tries to run around the guy to get to the door.

He grasps her sides and lifts her up gently, placing her back on the floor when she stops fighting.

“Impressive,” he says, picking up the radio. “It’s a relatively simple fix, but I’m guessing no one taught you how to do this, right?”

Raven shrugs. “Not really. I’m just good at it.”

The man smiles. “Yeah, it seems like you are. How’d you like to get better?” he asks, and Raven narrows her eyes.

“How?”

“I’ll teach you,” he replies, and Raven can’t help the hope that fills her.

“What do you want?” Raven asks cautiously.

“Help,” he says casually, like he’s afraid to scare her away. He backs away and opens a drawer, pulling out tools.

She could easily make a run for the door now that he’s no longer blocking it.

“What’s your name?” she asks instead.

He turns to her and smiles. “Sinclair. And what might yours be?”

“Raven,” she says, her eyes not leaving the tools in front of her.

She doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but this could be the best thing that'll ever happen to her.

~~

It escalates quickly from that—as she grows older, she spends less and less time at home, and more time as Sinclair’s unofficial apprentice. She spends more time with friends, unlikely as they are. There’s a boy from Agro in her science classes with an affinity for engineering, and she thinks they could be good friends one day. There’s a boy from Alpha too, whose dad is the Chancellor, but who hides food in her bag when he thinks no one is watching.

Raven is watching, but she doesn’t say anything.

Maybe it’s pride, or maybe she’s just grateful, and she doesn’t want to make things complicated.

She doesn’t want to ruin the good things in her life.

“The air filtration system on Tesla is acting up again,” Sinclair tells her when she comes in her for daily lesson—which, at this point, is more just time to work on stuff with him.

If Sinclair has anything to say about it, she’ll be his official protégé one day, and she’ll follow in his footsteps.

She can’t imagine ever wanting anything more than that.

Raven snorts. “When isn’t it acting up?” she asks. “It’s like they didn’t bring enough spare parts when they set up the original space stations.”

“They didn’t,” Sinclair says simply, and it hits her hard.

The thing about what they do is that you can focus on problems, and come up with solutions. You don’t worry about what ifs unless they’re the kind that lead to the finished product.

But Raven’s never met a problem she doesn’t think she can fix.

“Do you ever wonder what it’ll be like for the people who get to go to the ground?” Raven asks.

Sinclair makes a thoughtful noise, and takes her question seriously.

This is one of her favorite things about Sinclair, though she’s never quite put it into words before.

“I just hope they’ll get a chance to live,” Sinclair says simply, and Raven frowns.

“Do you think the earth won’t be habitable?” Raven asks.

Sinclair shrugs. “I think there’s a lot that goes into the big, broad concept of life on earth after the end of the world.”

They turn a corner to get to Tesla, and head into one of the main control rooms. Sinclair gets to work quickly, kneeling down and opening up one of the machines.

“It’s like what we do,” Sinclair says now. “A thousand little pieces that all work together to keep us alive. If one goes down, maybe we can work around it, buy ourselves some time to survive. Maybe, some other parts start to break down. And then—“Sinclair sighs.

“We die,” Raven finishes.

“Exactly,” Sinclair nods. “But I prefer to hope for our descendants.”

Raven wonders now, not for the first time, why Sinclair never had a child.

Then again, she’s not sure she would choose so differently.

Raven thinks of her mother, and holds her tongue. She doesn’t ask, because she already knows.

“There won’t be any descendants if we don’t fix the air filtration system,” Raven says with a smirk.

Sinclair laughs. “You’re not wrong about that,” he says, and they get started in earnest.

There’s something comforting about this.

~~

When Raven goes home most days, her mother is either passed out from drugs or nowhere to be found. There’s not far to wander on the Ark, but sometimes Raven goes days without seeing her mother.

It doesn’t help that she doesn’t even want to. She avoids her when she can. It makes things easier for everyone involved.

Today, she’s relaxing when her mother comes home.

Her mother looks at her strangely for a moment, and narrows her eyes. “You’re still here,” she says, like she was expecting something different.

Raven feels something bubbling up inside of her that feels a little like laughter, a lot like hurt and anger. “Yeah, I’m only fifteen. I don’t get my own quarters yet. You’re still stuck with me.”

“Hmm.”

Raven’s not sure what she’s supposed to do with that, so she grabs the tablet she’d been reading a book on, and heads to bed.

Her heart aches in her chest, and she struggles to force the feeling away.

~~

Raven is barely paying attention in science class. They're supposed to figure out how to create a battery, but that's easy.

Raven quickly starts working on something more complicated, and she doesn't pay attention when someone walks up next to her.

“I wish I understood how things fit together,” she hears, and she immediately knows who it is. It's Wells Jaha from Alpha, the boy who is always inexplicably nice to her. She doesn't get it.

She looks up at him. “It’s not like that’s an impossible goal,” she teases. “You take ‘em apart, you put them back together. Wham, bam.”

Wells frowns. “Maybe, but it wouldn't be as inherent as it is with you,” Wells explains. “I think what you do is amazing.”

Raven looks back down at her hands holding the pieces of a something she’s been tinkering with for a while. She's trying to adjust the power source for the regular tablets they use on the Ark to see if she can increase efficiency.

“You’re good at everything,” Raven says lightly now. They’re not quite friends, but maybe they could be.

It’s weird, and Raven’s never quite sure what to do when he sits down next to her and starts talking.

“Not everything,” Wells says with a shrug. He doesn’t sound resentful, like some people do. He’s simply accepted that he has strengths and weaknesses.

Oddly, Raven finds this endearing.

She’s all mixed up inside, and doesn’t understand why.

~~

“Shit,” Raven hisses when a minor spark hits her. She drops her tools and buries her head in her hands.

“You’re off your game today, Reyes,” Sinclair comments at one point. “Careful, if you don’t want to get pushed out by Green over there,” Sinclair nods his head towards Monty Green, from Agro. It’s not exactly a fight to the death competition, because they’re both really, really good at this, and while they have overlapping interests, they both have different strengths. Still, it doesn't help with her mood.

“Sorry,” Raven says shortly, and doesn’t offer an explanation.

“Hey,” Sinclair says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Raven shakes her head. “Nothing,” she lies. There’s a lot going on. Her mother is tired of her, and she’s tired of her mother. She’s got weird feelings for some boy, and they’re not going to go anywhere.

This is the one thing she’s supposed to have. She’s good at fixing things, at putting them back together.

If she screws this up, then she has nothing.

“Hey, Monty,” Sinclair says, “Why don’t you go check in with Kane about the status of the repair?”

“Sure,” Monty says with a nod and an easy smile.

Raven sighs when he leaves, and sits back in her chair. “It’s not that easy to get me to open up, Sinclair,” Raven says lightly.

Sinclair nods. “If you change your mind,” he says gently, “I’m here.”

Raven smiles back. “Thank you,” she says. She’s not really ready to open up to him, but it’s nice to have the option.

"Why don't we go through this step by step then?" Sinclair asks, and Raven nods.

If she can focus on this, then she can give herself the time to work out everything else.

They work through for two straight hours, until it's time to take a break.

Raven grabs her water bottle and takes a drink, and Sinclair settles into his chair with a tired sigh.

"Feeling better?" Sinclair asks, and Raven cocks her head to the side.

"Yeah," Raven replies. "I really do. It helps to get out of my head."

Sinclair nods. He doesn't pry, doesn't ask her again how she's feeling. He's waiting, she realizes, until she's ready.

"It's just--" Raven says finally, "I have these feelings, and I don't really know what to do with them."

Sinclair chuckles. "Well, that's usually the case."

"How do you know whether it's--" Raven hesitates. "Safe? To care about someone, I mean? How do you know it won't end up just breaking your heart?"

"You don't," Sinclair replies. "When I was young, there was someone I loved. We were together for years."

"What happened?" Raven asks. She's always been curious about Sinclair's life, and this is a new side of him she's never seen before.

"He wanted different things," Sinclair says, "But it didn't make the time we had together any less important, or any less special. It was worth it, even through the pain."

It sounds easy, the way he says it. "Bullshit," Raven says. "Why would you be okay with the pain?"

Sinclair sighs. "It's just not that simple. At first, if it ends, it does feel . . . hard, for a while. You do regret it. But eventually, hopefully, you can feel fondness when you remember it. And then you fall in love again, with someone else, and it starts all over again."

Raven's not sure if she believes that, but she wants to.

~~

“Try this,” Monty says one day, handing Raven a wire different from the one she’d been using.

“It’s too short,” Raven says, and Monty shakes his head.

“Not if you connect it here and there,” Monty says, pointing. Raven frowns. She mentally goes through it, trying to figure out if it makes sense.

“I think you might be right,” Raven says, and Monty laughs.

“Now that’s not something you say very often,” Monty teases.

“Well, it’s usually what you say to me,” Raven points out, smiling. “Since I’m usually right.”

“That’s what you always tell us,” Monty says.

They both laugh then, and Sinclair comes in and just stares at them like they’ve lost their minds.

It just makes them laugh harder.

~~

Raven taps a screwdriver against the table in front of her, frowning.

"Something on your mind, Raven?" Sinclair asks with a laugh.

She looks up at him sharply. "Huh?"

"You've been tapping the screwdriver for the last five minutes," Sinclair explains, and Raven relaxes.

"I'm just thinking," she replies. "Lots on my mind."

She turns eighteen soon, which is wild in a lot of ways. She'll get to leave her mother, and she'll be able to start the rest of her life. She'll feel free for the very first time. At least, she hopes so.

“You’re coming to an important time in your life,” Sinclair points out. “It’s natural to think about things, and try to figure out how it’s all going to come together.”

That’s always been Raven’s thing anyway, she realizes. She’s just applying it to thoughts and feelings, and it’s not quite working out the way she wants it too.

She’s scared, more than anything. She’s not sure what the future holds, but she can’t admit that.

She wants to be free, but she's terrified that she won’t be able to hack it. She’s never been very good at admitting weakness, because she feels them all so deeply. She’s been told enough times about her each and every flaw that she’d rather just emotionally beat herself up about it than open herself to more outside criticism.

She’s afraid that she’s going to fail, that she’s not good enough.

“It’s stressful,” Raven says finally.

“You’ll be okay,” Sinclair says, and he hands her the piece of sheet metal she needs before she even asks for it. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve been doing this for years. The future is a big concept, but it’s just a continuation of the here and now.”

Raven cocks her head to the side. “Maybe here and now isn’t as great as it seems,” Raven admits finally, almost despite herself.

Sinclair sits down across from her, with a thoughtful look. “Why is that?” he asks gently.

Raven’s never told anyone before about her mom, because she’s always pretty much assumed that no one cares, that it won’t make a difference. Even if it does, even if someone goes and tells her mom to stop, to be kinder, or to at least be less awful, Raven has a hard time imagining that it won’t end up backfiring.

Her mother will get worse, and Raven will be stuck with it.

Raven has a week until her birthday comes.

Raven opens her mouth, and the truth spills out.

“Raven,” Sinclair says, outraged on her behalf, which doesn’t surprise her, but comforts her just the same. He puts a hand on her arm, and it’s steadying, oddly. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” he says without judgment or condemnation.

Raven shrugs. “There was no point.”

“There was,” Sinclair shakes his head. “And there is. I have somewhere for you to stay until you're assigned your own quarters." He says it in his very serious, brooking no arguments tone of voice, and Raven almost cries.

She holds back the tears. "I'll be fine," she says. "It's just another week."

"Maybe," Sinclair says, "But it's probably long past the point for you to leave." He's not wrong.

"Thank you," Raven says, because she doesn't know what else to say. "Thank you."

Now all she needs to do is have the rest of her life fall into place, starting with her final exams. 

"Everything is going to be just fine," Sinclair tells her, and she really wants to believe that.

~~

She fails.

The problem is not the science of the situation, or her intelligence, or even how she works with people. It simply comes down to a small, physical thing. A heart murmur, of all things.

She’d risk anything and everything to follow her path, and it takes everything she has not to break down.

She goes to hide in one of the engineering rooms that people tend to frequent less often, and that’s where Sinclair finds her.

“Are you ready, Reyes?” Sinclair asks.

“For what?” Raven says, and she feels like her heart has been pulled right out of her chest. “I failed the physical, I’m basically screwed.”

Sinclair shakes his head and laughs, which kind of hurts almost as much as failing the physical. “I overruled that, pulled some strings. Don’t worry about it.”

“What?” Raven’s baffled, and she feels like this is some sick joke.

“You’re good to go, Raven,” Sinclair says again, this time a little more kindly. He holds out a hand, and she grasps it, shaking it. “Welcome,” he says, and it feels like all the doors in the world of the Ark have opened for her. "You're about to be the youngest zero-g mechanic in Ark history."

She follows her instincts and hugs him. He’s a little surprised at first, but he relaxes, and pats her shoulder.

If she had a father, she thinks, she’d want him to be exactly like Sinclair.

She’s lucky, and it fills her with hope.

~~

Raven’s not working solo much, because she’s still being taught how to do things, but she’s good, probably the best unequivocally, especially since Monty has been locked up.

They’d never been too close, but they’d had similar minds. They’d understood how things worked, and they’d gotten along easily, which isn’t something Raven can say about her relationships with most people.

Living on Ark means living with the knowledge that mistakes mean death. It's lawful, instead of a matter of survival, but it's probably a lot like life on earth would be.

This, at least, is how she rationalizes it. It's wrong, but it's what they have to work with.

Raven finishes working on an EKG machine in Medical, and turns to Sinclair, who smiles at her.

"You're good at this," Sinclair says, and he sounds so proud that Raven that it feels _amazing_.

"I had a good teacher," Raven replies back, and Sinclair lights up, like she's said something great or wonderful.

For the first time, Raven has the sense that Sinclair gets as much out of their connection as she does.

"Why didn't you ever have kids?" Raven asks suddenly. She's wondered about it for a long time, but she's never asked. It felt too personal, but right now she can't help herself.

"I did," Sinclair says after a brief pause. "Everyone that I've taught, every student I've had. They're all like my kids."

"It's not really the same," Raven points out with a frown.

"Isn't it?" Sinclair asks, meeting her eyes with his own.

Raven thinks about Sinclair supporting her, teaching her, talking to her about boys, and it hits her.

"Yeah," Raven says finally, a smile breaking out over her face. "I guess it is."


End file.
